Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Words create worlds

Cultural perception of disability has long standing historical influences and has been shaped by fear of the unknown.

Ancient Greeks disposed of imperfect babies. The Romans would throw disfigured children under horse’s hooves in games in the Coliseum. Witches were identified by their impairments or by giving birth to disabled children and burnt at the stakes. Changeling children were drowned. Ridiculed as Court Jesters and the village idiot. Differences were caused by maternal imagination if frightened when pregnant, sexual immorality, astrological factors and divine punishment of parent sins.

Fear of the unknown - difference – do we still have that excuse today?

Homes for the elderly reminiscent of the images of the old asylum’s still haunt us. Derogatory, demeaning, dehumanizing. It is still ‘them and us’. Frightening as we don’t want it for ourselves so we ignore it. 70% of us will become disabled as we age.

We in theory have come far from exorcism, bleeding, leeches, cupping, electric shocks, lobotomy and worse. Or have we? There are many therapies and treatments out there and some parents want to cure their child. This is one of the reasons the disability movement have not always seen eye to eye with the carer's movement.

Disability is a product of how we have set our society up. Discrimination, bullying, abuse, hate crime and oppression are still with us. We still struggle with getting on to transport, getting jobs, getting into buildings, communication. Many families/people still feel they can’t go out. Cutting benefits and services adds to the perception of burden that our society has to bear adding to the barriers of prejudice and ignorance. Keeping people stuck in the cycle of institutionalisation and dependency.

Many charities still exploit pity. Language is bias as we still use such words as; special, client, victim, user, marginalised, suffers from etc. We want to hear about independence, participation, inclusion, choice and more...

Must have been terrible in those days...... little better than animal behaviour, when the mother would eat any malformed cubs/pups etc.Although we have come on in leaps & bounds since these dark ages, there is still a way to go. (And some of it wasn't that long ago, either.)This was a thought provoking post!Maggie X

Wow, I'm... ok with words like special and functioning level because they're so much better than words like "mentally retarded," convey some understanding of disability and (if spoken kindly) are simply clarifying adjectives like tall or older might be. Maybe I am behind times but umm... I don't hear about autism being hip and hot around these parts. It's just considered bratty behaviour, shut your kid up, that kind of thing. Which I thought was really scary until I read some of your history on disability there. WHO is the barbaric and deformed one when we do such things... Thank you, Casdok, for another great post!

I think that disability, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder...many parents (mostly mothers) can see nothing but perfection in their child, and resent the implication that their child may be something less than that...others see imperfections that exist only in their own minds...it's only a win win situation for the child who has a mother such as yourself, dealing with the disability, not denying it, not explointing it, simply accepting it and helping their child overcome. After all this time, it's still a situation of overcoming. Hugs to you and your sweet son...Sandi

A girl in my college speech class, with a paraplegic brother, said something so powerful that stuck with me: "The disabled is a minority group which any of us can join at any time." She implored able-bodied class members to think of how we'd need and want to be treated if, heaven forbid, we were hit by a bus or found out we had cancer that required amputation tomorrow or something. It certainly shifted my thinking a bit. (I hope she got an A for that speech!)

It's appalling how so often, able-bodied people see the disability and lose the person who has it. As if a disability has a person, and not the other way around.

This is so true, and I love how you bring up the fact that most of us will become disabled in some way as we age. I think this is an issue we all need to work on. As humans it's in our nature to categorize and even be prejudiced or have preconceived notions about people. It's something we all have to fight against all the time. Thanks for shedding a light on it.

Throughout history there have been little pockets of reason in the treatment of various groups such as those wih mental illnesses (as an eaxample). Quaker establishments in England in the 1800's based on the ideas of work and social equality and respect for "that of God in everyone." Humane sanitariums in the Middle East while Europe was mired in the Dark Ages where any difference was thought to be caused by possession. So the capacity for justice and equality for all humans has always been in us, but so often people are ignorant or fearful and in need of education about the issue.

Excellent post, and thanks in particular for that fascinating link to the pseudoscience paper which I'm going to go away and read in detail.

You're absolutely right too about charities exploiting pity. I think of the worst offenders as 'grief farmers': They prey on families who are grieving for the children they never had and trap them in the denial/anger stage, telling them that if they keep shouting slogans, one day their children will be 'cured'. Parents in this situation need to come to terms with the way their children are and value them as people, not as victims.

Great post as always :)sorry havent spoke for a while.Lou was left to wander from her school yesterday. :( - i have a meeting monday about this. Didnt sleep last night and was sickIm starting a new blog, can you put it up on here, please. http://autismwandering.blogspot.com/I feel this needs highlighting. thanks

Sorry about my lack of visits.Spike's, our dog, illness, quick death nov/decand being so ill jan/feb to march meant no visits Since then I have been spending more time sitting in my wheelchair I have also not been visiting.